Andre Yoskowitz
28 Jan 2011 2:21
Netflix has posted a list of the fastest American ISPs today, giving some of the most accurate data for sustained transfers, ever.
Most speed testing sites rely on quick (30 seconds or less) bursts of speed, which can be inaccurate.
Says Ken Florance, director of content delivery at Netflix:
We find ourselves in the unique position of having insight into the performance of hundreds of millions of long duration, high-definition video streams delivered over the Internet.
As we use a number of CDNs, and our clients can adapt to changing network conditions by selecting the network path that's currently giving them the best throughput, Netflix streaming performance ends up being an interesting way to measure sustained throughput available from a given ISP over time, and therefore the quality of Netflix streaming that ISP is providing to our subscribers. Obviously, this can vary by network technology (e.g. DSL, Cable), region, etc., but it's a great high-level view of Netflix performance across a large number of individual streaming sessions.